Barry Schwartz – The Paradox of Choice

Barry Schwartz recounts a trip to the department store to buy a new pair of jeans, something he had not done in about a decade. The situation he encounters is different from what he recalls from his past: “All this choice made it possible for me to do better, but I felt worse. Why? I wrote a whole book to try to explain this to myself.”

He later concludes that an increase in choices meant an increase in expectations. When combined with his assertion that the best way to increase happiness is to decrease expectations, the abundance of choice paradoxically yielded a decrease in happiness.